The Owl Has Flown by Sven Birkerts

Gurjot Ram
January 24, 2010
English 100A- Reading Response #3

In this reading, “The Owl Has Flown,” Sven Birkerts explains the importance of reading and how it challenges our inner thoughts to make us more interested in reading. Today we have more to read than we did any time before. In the time before reading turned into as it is today, Robert Darnton states, “They had only a few books- the bible, an almanac, a devotional work or two- and they them over and over again, usually aloud in groups, so that a narrow range of traditional literature became deeply impressed on their consciousness.” This shows that today, we have a vast majority of books to read while they only had a scarce amount of readings. Birkerts explains that when we read, we must think deep in order to understand what message the author is trying to tell us. Birkerts is trying to tell us that reading and thinking are two similar things and often go together. Birkerts explains that when we read, we must think about what we are reading. Reading today is different from what it was when books were scarce and there wasn’t that much to read. In order to tell us what reading and to challenge our inner thoughts, Birkerts explains that depth, wisdom, data, and resonance must all come together in order to get what it really means. Birkerts explains that we are experiencing a loss of depth. Depth deals with the sense of the deep and “natural connectedness” of things. This means that in order to get what the author is trying to tell us, we must look at the text and think. Wisdom is, “the knowing not of facts but of truths about human nature and the processes of life.” We often here that old wisdom is good because older people have been through more than young people and have more to teach them. Wisdom in reading differs from age to age because reading is changing. The data of the reading tells us the overall message of the reading and gives us a chance to analyze the reading. Resonance is when reading resonates inside you and challenges you to think about the reading. The passage of Darnton makes it seem like today, we have a wide variety of books to choose from while in older generations people were generally stuck reading the bible or some other books. This article is very similar to Clive Thompson’s article because Andrea Lunsford explains that writing is changing and Birkerts is saying that reading is also changing.